Professor, Director - North Asia CAPEThe University of Auckland: Asian Studies, Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Biography

Paul Clark is a pioneer in the academic study of Chinese films. After completing a masters degree in New Zealand Māori history, he was one of the first three New Zealand students to go to Beijing on official exchange for two years study. His Harvard PhD thesis was on the Chinese film industry from 1949 to 1983. He has published books on Māori history, Chinese cinema, a cultural history of the Cultural Revolution, and on Chinese youth culture in 1968, 1988 and 2008. His current Mardsen Fund project is on changing leisure spaces in Beijing since 1949.

Research | Current

Chinese films and popular culture, including culture during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Chinese youth culture

Beijing since 1949

My current book project is a history of leisure and changing leisure spaces in Beijing since 1949. It builds on two strands in my research career: history and cultural studies. This project is supported by a grant from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand. I continue to write on Chinese film history, particularly the period from 1949 until the 1980s.

My most recent book, published in 2012, is on the development of Chinese youth culture from 1968 to 2008, showing how young Chinese learned to assert their identity in three very different historical circumstances. My cultural history of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) which covers the beginning of this period, was also published by Cambridge University Press. The 2005 book on the Fifth-Generation filmmakers was reprinted in 2014 with an update.

Teaching | Current

Postgraduate supervision

Paul Clark supervises doctoral and Masters research on Chinese film, modern Chinese literature and modern Chinese history. Two current doctoral students are researching the question of realism in contemporary Chinese cinema and the hidden cultural meanings in the model performances of the Cultural Revolution.

Clark, P. J. A. (2009). Special Issue: Chinese Film [Guest editorship, working with nine other international film scholars, of Chinese University of Hong Kong journal]. Renditions: A Chinese-English Translation Magazine, 71, 1-137.